Few days ago some people invited me over to play Gin Rummy, but in the end I got caught up in an addiction towards a game of Texas Hold 'em Poker.

So in conjunction with Malaysia's Hari Merdeka, where there'd be lots of gambling throughout the country, here's a bunch of tips on




1. Look straight in the eye

When raising the stakes, a good way to seemingly boost your confidence and discourage an opponent, perhaps the strongest player in the game, is to look directly in the eyes of him while adding chips to your bet. This way, your confidence will seem overwhelmingly higher than most of your opponents when it comes to their respective turns.



2. Keep the numbers in mind

Whenever you're dealt with your hand at the beginning of the round, take a solid look at your hand once and put it down without touching it for the rest of the duration of that round. This phenomenon will enable your opponents to recognize your talent in working out the game within your mind and not revealing your steps in game.



3. Reckless but refined

This probably needs a little pre-game planning to set up nicely. Mix up your chips in several piles where each denomination i.e $1, $2, $5 and $10 do not look directly accessible from separate piles, but make sure each pile contributes to the possibility of each denomination being able to be selected from the top of all the piles for each game round. The random order of chip denomination makes it look you're simply betting whatever is on the top of the piles, and possibly want to finish off your chips, but in fact it's just a silly trick of mixing up your chips.



4. Don't count your chips

Every blink of an eye, every word of the mouth, every additional second to think, determines your capabilities in poker. Even counting your chips after every single round or before every single bet may render you an immature player. Thus, keep a good mental count of the total stakes for the round, how much you're willing to bet, your break even point, etc.



5. Learn a cool poker chip trick

Another fantastic way to act professional is to demonstrate your skills with poker chips. This may seem like you're being a show-off, so try to act like your concentrating on your game with one hand while doing some poker chip tricks with the other. In the end, most of your opponent will spot your complex personality in the game of poker.



6. Confucius bluff

When playing a bluff, it is fairly easy to detect when the bluffer is provoking his opponents to believe him, for example when a good hand is received, blood pressure and the heartbeat would definitely rise, which will inevitably alter the effectiveness of your bluffing methods. The point is to try switching patterns of your actions from truth to false and vice versa. For example, if you ask questions like "is a double pair bigger than a triple" at the round of the flop and subsequently, when the turn is dealt, and is favour of a possible double pair or a triple, another question of "Is a Full House or Four of a Kind bigger", your opponents may be caught in panic, which is the best time for you to play around with the stakes, even if you have nothing at all in your hand.



7. Don't be indecisive

One very important thing to keep in mind while player any mental game is not to be caught in dilemma. Many players reveal their identity when they become stuck in between whether or not to follow the bet or fold, or even when their deciding on how much to raise the stakes. As a result of that, opponents will diminish their doubts on your confidence. Unless being indecisive is part of your bluff, then follow through to the end of it.



8. Play like in the movies

As we have seen on tv, professional poker have communicational ethics in place, where players give a solid knock on the table to signal a check,implying that he wishes not to raise the stakes. Also when players calls or follows the bet, the announcement is left to the moderator or the dealer. The trick is to play very quietly and use minimal words or none at all. Evidently, the other opponents who are extremely loud and just can't shut up will tend to doubt their decisions and even direct their attention on the quiet player(s).



9. Play on the table

When looking at your hand, try not to take the cards away from the table i.e when you want to look at it, or when you're answering the phone. This is actually a very subconscious matter, and makes your opponents think you're very possessive of your belongings, in this case, making you seem like you are a safe player and are very careful with your betting.



10. Skills with card dealing

In Texas Poker, if the game goes by the dealer personally dealing the cards out, it might be a good chance, when it comes to your turn, for you to show off some skills and tricks with a deck of cards while shuffling and dealing it to intimidate them, perhaps even demonstrating a full magic card trick to get your opponents distracted.



This is probably the dumbest-sounding foundations of the fundamentals of the basics of the beginner's guide to poker, since I'm one of them, but hey, you'll never what works until the fat lady sings. So go try out it out sometime.



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Labels: expanding my knowledge